Tonight, to celebrate its 10th birthday, The Wright Stuff will be broadcast live at 8pm on Five – and for the first time reach an audience wider than housewives, students, the unemployed and the hungover. That is no bad thing: along with Andrew Neil's Daily Politics show, The Wright Stuff is one of only a handful of daytime shows on mainstream TV that break up the mind-numbing stream of sofas and soaps, repeats and makeover shows. It inventively taps into our appetite for news, discussion and gossip – it's basically What The Papers Say meets Loose Women, and its presenter is fast and funny.

Recorded live, the programme usually goes out at 9.15am, for 90 minutes. It is one of those shows where you feel anything can happen – and it often does: Wright notably named Ulrika Johnson's alleged rapist as John Leslie, and David Van Day dumped his girlfriend live on air. Just recently he declared that Mary Bale, the cat bin lady was, in tabloid speak a "bonkers bint" (Philip Schofield he ain't), and on Tuesday explained exactly how two journalists might hack into a celebrity's phone. He is not your average daytime TV host, famously disliking children, Christmas and Jeremy Kyle (but likes Hawkwind, fishing and motorbikes).

Wright worked on The Sun's Bizarre column before moving to the Daily Mirror – and the press still shapes the agenda for his show, and its ability to react swiftly to the day's news stories is key it its success. He is perhaps not as impartial as he claims; he is a left-leaning libertarian most of the time with an occasional authoritarian streak. Sometimes there's a "hit-and-run" approach to complex, nuanced subjects because of the constraints of live early morning TV, but the discussions are always thoughtful and cogent.

His critics say he's smarmy – Chris Tarrant once said "hasn't Matthew Wright got one of those faces you would never tire of hitting?" – and there is sometimes a giddy air to the show, but Wright is a natural on TV. Callers he doesn't warm to are harried along until they cut to the chase, while he glares balefully into the camera as though they've just spilled his pint and he's deciding whether to punch them. If they're totally off message, they're swiftly curtailed.

Wright often plays devil's advocate while his guests dissect the day's water cooler topics – politician Ed Vaizey (who tried out herbal viagra on the show) comedians Dominic Holland and the spectacularly off-script Scott Capurro (Wright always looks manifestly relieved at the end of any show when he's on), Huey Morgan from the Fun Lovin' Criminals and Janet Street Porter have all recently been on the show – prompting Tracy Ann Oberman to enquire during a discussion on police expenditure last week: "have you gone mad?"

This informality extends to the interaction with the audience, many of whom are regulars and have something of a Mrs Merton air about them. In any case, they're clearly having a good time as they keep coming back.

It will be interesting to see how the Wright Stuff fares tonight outside the desolation of the daytime TV schedule, with its estranged spouses slugging it out in a mock courtrooms, and how its low-budget aesthetics will fit with the slickness of primetime TV. Could it be destined for bigger and better things?